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Gov. Newsom grants 19 pardons, including to San Quentin 'Ear Hustle' podcaster
On the day before Thanksgiving, California Gov. Gavin Newsom pardoned 19 people, including Walter Earlonne Woods, who was incarcerated in San Quentin when he started a podcast that was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
SAN QUENTIN, Calif. - On the day before Thanksgiving, California Gov. Gavin Newsom pardoned 19 people, including Walter Earlonne Woods, who was incarcerated in San Quentin when he started a podcast that was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
"This has been a beautiful week for me," the 53-year-old Woods said in an Instagram video Wednesday afternoon. "I got a call from Gov. Newsom. He was like, ‘bruh,’ I appreciate the work you been doing. Continue doing it. Y'all doing your s--- out here. I just want you to know this, I just granted your application for a pardon. So, your boy has been pardoned!"
Woods also recounted how he re-connected with his brother, who was also released from prison, and how he is the father to twin babies, a boy and a girl.
In granting the pardon, Newsom said that Woods had "provided evidence that he is living an upright life and has demonstrated his fitness for restoration of civic rights and responsibilities."
Newsom said that this act of clemency does not minimize or forgive what Woods had done: IN 1989, at age 17, Woods was sentenced to 10 years for burglary and kidnapping and in 1999, he was sentenced to 31 years to life for attempted second degree robbery and assault with a gun.
Then-Gov. Jerry Brown commuted Wood's sentence in 2018 after 21 years behind bars, and Woods was freed from prison in 2019.
Co-hosts of Ear Hustle Earlonne Woods (left) being photographed by Nigel Poor (right) as he goes through San Quentin archive photos at the San Francisco Chronicle archives on Tuesday, July 30, 2019 in San Francisco, Calif. Woods and Poor started t …
Woods continues to work on the outside as a full-time producer and co-host for the podcast.
While incarcerated at San Quentin, Woods received his GED, attended Coastline Community College, and completed many vocational trade programs, according to his Ear Hustle biography.
Woods is also the co-author of This Is Ear Hustle: Unflinching Stories of Everyday Prison Life, which was the San Francisco Public Library’s One City One Book selection in 2022.
"Ear Hustle," which began in 2017 along with Bay Area artist Nigel Poor and Antwan Williams, who was also incarcerated at San Quentin, bills itself as "the first podcast created and produced in prison, featuring stories of the daily realities of life inside California’s San Quentin State Prison, shared by those living it." The podcast was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 2020.
In 2021, Ear Hustle received an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for "shatter[ing] the myths about serving time and what happens afterwards." Ear Hustle has also received honors from the Third Coast International Audio Festival, the Moran Center for Youth Advocacy, and is a two-time Peabody Award nominee.
"Ear Hustle" is prison slang for eavesdropping.
Newsom weighs a number of factors when reviewing clemency applications, "including an applicant’s self-development and conduct since the offense, whether the grant is in the interest of justice, and the impact of a grant on the community, including crime victims and survivors," according to his office.
In 2022, Newsom commuted one of Woods' fellow podcasters, Rahsaan Thomas, who was released from San Quentin in 2023 and has been an active member of the Society of Professional Journalists and a working documentary filmmaker.